Latest ONSW News
Entries are now open for the annual Xmas 5-Days carnival which this year is being held in the NSW Southern Highlands.
See the event web page and for details. The invitation is on Eventor. Please note there will be very limited EOD.
Entries close Tue Dec 15.
Your visit will help an area devastated by last summer's bushfires.
One of the highlights of this year's carnival is the chance to run on the awesome Wattle Ridge map which has been updated and had nearly all of the green removed.
Big Foot and SHOO-IKO took out five of the six divisions as the Sydney MetrO League wound up for 2020 at Boggabilla Reserve on Sunday.
Round 1 pre-covid at Castle Hill seems like a different universe, and we are grateful that we have found a way to stage events since community sport resumed in July.
The fifth and final round was on an updated map (thanks Rebecca George) unrecognisable from previous visits - in a number of areas the bush was considerably slower and thicker, and this made controls harder to find.
Big Foot (pictured left) completed unbeaten seasons in the top two divisions to make it yet another quinella, thrashing Garingal and Bennelong respectively.
Their Division 2 team was a family affair, with three Shinglers and two Georges.
SHOO-IKO (pictured right) had a day to remember, winning their last round robin matches in Divisions 3 and 5 (topping the latter table on 'goal difference') and upsetting Garingal in the Division 6 final to make it three premierships.
Garingal's unbeaten Division 4 side made it 5 straight with a comfortable win over SHOO-IKO.
Individual medal winners were:
* Div 1: Toby Wilson (GO)
* Div 2: Cooper Horley (GO)
* Div 3: Miles Ellis (BF)
* Div 4: Adam Horley (GO)
* Div 5: Samuel Tsang (BN)
* Div 6: James Stuart (IK)
Congratulations to the father-son Horleys!
All the results and tables are on our ML web page.
A big thank you to setter Shane Doyle, controller Ori Gudes, organiser Zoe Melling, Ron Pallas on SI and all the Uringa helpers. Our hosts were doing it tough following the passing of club legend Terry Murphy on Friday.
And a special thank you to all the club captains, along with the lovely chaps from Bankstown Sports Baseball Club for the use of facilities.
While clubs have been slowly getting back to normal thanks to covid, it's been business as usual in the Sporting Schools program.
Last term we debuted new coaches in Ori Gudes (Uringa, top left), Serena Doyle (Uringa, bottom left), Katherine Cameron (Bennelong) and Keelan Birch (Bush n Beach), and this term Frances Richards (Uringa, right) is making her debut.
"Working with kids at North Caringbah was a very rewarding experience," said Ori.
"It was incredible to watch how some of them were able to navigate from the first lesson!"
Serena added: "It’s amazing to see so much joy in the kids faces when they participate in orienteering."
Thanks also to Barbara Dawson (Garingal, left), Erica Smith (Northern Tablelands), Liz Bulman (Garingal) and Ian Jessup (ONSW) for their roles in mentoring our new coaches.
Barbara oversaw Ori and Serena at Caringbah North PS, Liz helped Katherine at North Balgowlah PS and Ian is helping Frances who is coaching at Double Bay PS.
Erica assisted Keelan, who was busy making maps and coaching at Clarence Valley Anglican School and Kyogle HS.
Sporting Schools gives students in Years 3-6 four sessions of their chosen sport. The feedback our coaches get from teachers, principals and students is very high.
Caringbah North love it so much that they are into their third program, and all 350 year 3-6 students have done orienteering.
NSW has accredited 267 Level 0 coaches in the past five years - more than double any other state.
NSW is the state that does the most orienteering in Sporting Schools (35 schools in 2019), and we are delighted that the federal government has committed $20m in funding until the end of 2021.
Since it started in 2015, more than 7,500 schools have received Sporting Schools funding with the aim to encourage kids to be active and hopefully develop a life-long desire to remain so.
If you're interested in coaching eager primary school students, or a school looking for a fun program, get in touch with Jim Mackay (
Jenny Enderby and Alex Massey have taken out the Newcastle Orienteer of the Year trophies yet again.
It's at least the fifth or sixth time this pair have finished ahead of the field; in 2020 there were 6 events in the OY series due to covid taking out the period from April-July.
Winners of the other classes were:
Very Easy: Baxter Peel
Easy: Ulrika Sandberg
Short Moderate: Sally Quill
Long Moderate: Warren Quilty
Short Hard: Erika Enderby
Medium Hard: Glenn Burgess
With infection rates reduced to single or at worst very low double digits, restrictions were lifted on community sports in late July to allow club members the opportunity to participate.
A big thank you to David Kitchener for rejigging the Newcastle calendar several times, the landowners who allow us onto their properties, all the helpers and participants.
The club does a lot of heavy lifting in NSW and in 2021 will host the QB III weekend in June as well as the Australian MTBO champs in September.
More immediately, Newcastle have their second street warm-up series at Lakelands on Wednesday. They are using the free MapRunF app for all street events.
